Hildy

PapaBear, resorting to swearing does you no favours, indeed it discredits the forum.

You imply that Gersnet has standards and then kick them into touch when it suits you.

Most of the other contributors seem to be able to articulate an argument without dropping standards.

I suggest that you follow their example.

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Supposing we win every game - are we seriously going to boast about a club with our resources beating a collection of non-entities and no-marks?

The fact that we are clinging to this shows how far we have fallen. The top division in Scotland is now widely recognised as a shadow of what it used to be. Scottish teams can't even be trusted to get past the preliminary rounds in Europe, and yet here we are in the 3rd division thinking that bullying minnows into defeat is something worth shouting about. This is embarrassing. It might be an achievement for a Gretna-sized club, but it's not something that a club of our stature should be crowing about.

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Celtic is a competitive force.

In any competition, it's important to have more than one genuine competitor or else it becomes a farce. Our division and the top division were decided before the first kick. This isn't watchable sport. There is no uncertainty - only monotony.

Rangers needs to be in the top division - for obvious reasons - and up against and in the same environment as its only real threat: Celtic.

No-one is suggesting that Celtic has to be liked, but it has to be respected as a football force because it is the only club capable of stopping us from being the dominant force in Scottish football.

Presently, we're being fed a diet of inedible scraps. I miss the red meat. I miss the week to week battle with Celtic where every point dropped is a weekend ruined - and where every point they drop is a weekend enhanced.

The garbage that we are being subjected to just now is football for vegetarians. It is an insult to competitive sport - both in the top division and in ours.

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This idea that we are so holy that we don't miss the OF game is high-minded drivel. The notion that they are so nasty that we should live a life in splendid isolation is nonsense.

We've played Celtic for over a century and there's been a longstanding mutual detestation - and both clubs have thrived on the back of it.

People talk about not missing their hatefulness and bile - what do they imagine football fans around Scotland think we bring to the party - goodwill and harmony? We are despised at least as much as they are around the country.

There seems to be a creeping malaise overtaking us as the mentality of being an outcast penetrates our soul. The parochialism that has been the hallmark of non-OF fans is seeping into the Rangers support. We are effectively in the huff.

It's time to give ourselves a shake. We miss the top level, we miss competitive football and we miss Celtic - and honest Celtic fans will tell you that they miss us just as much.

Without competition - which is what Rangers and Celtic provide for each other - there is nothing left of any real value. There's only one thing worse than a two-team league, and that's a one-team league.

They used to say that Scottish football needed a strong Celtic when we ruled the roost. These days, it desperately needs a strong Rangers.

This period in our history is a long joyless walk of misery and monotony. Let's not delude ourselves that it's anything else.

Bring on the Celtic!

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I simply cannot back the current board.

I'm not excited by the possibility of the requisitioners winning the day, but it will hopefully - hopefully - be a step in the right direction.

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That's what I'm getting at. the games are generally turgid, there is nothing to play for, we are bored rigid....but we're there week after week after week.

 

This is the time when we as a support are being forged and after 140 years of talking the talk about being the people, we've shown that it wasn't just talk and empty bluster. We actually are what we said we were, so in some respects I'd say there has never been a better time to be a Rangers fan - because after this, we can look any support in the eye.

The question wasn't about how great we are - it was about missing the OF game.

We miss it big time because it gives us a battle, a rivalry, a contest - it gives us hard-edged and meaningful sport.

This idea that Celtic are so nasty that we shouldn't ever play them again is submissive and embarrassing.

We don't need to like them, but we desperately need to get back to an environment where we regularly playing them.

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in some respects, yes - but this is also the time when we as a fan base have never had more reason to be proud of ourselves.

 

In our club's hour of need, we were there. Solid. Unwavering.

In the months after the desperate need appeared to have passed and the long slog back up the leagues began, we have been there. Solid. Unwavering.

 

The fans of all the diddy teams talked big and disappeared when asked to put hteir money where their oversized mouths were.

The fans of Glasgow's second biggest team must have started their Christmas shopping in early September, so bereft were the Parkhead seats of the green arses that used to sit on them.

Being there is one thing - being bored rigid by an unedifying spectacle is another. We are used to a fight to the finish with Celtic most years. Now, the pulse doesn't quicken from one game to the next because there's nothing at stake.

This experience is mind-numbing. The sooner we get back to the top to face Celtic, the better it will be.

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Of course I miss the OF game - but it's more than that - it's the competitive environment that is missed.

In the top division, every game feels like a must-win game and if points are dropped, the weekend is ruined. The ongoing week to week battle with Celtic sustains us because we are involved in a genuine sporting contest.

What both clubs are experiencing just now is a league season of games that matter little, that offer reduced entertainment and hardly any excitement at all. It's like a gap year followed by a gap year followed by a gap year. They got competitive football in Europe - briefly - while we are playing a series of glorified friendlies to while away the season.

We're not ready to face them yet, but speed the day when we are - and are back in the top division.

There has never been a worse time to be a Rangers fan than this year and last.

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The Rangers support wants leadership at the club that no longer exists. It wants an immaculately turned-out Rangers-minded billionaire who runs a scrupulously honest business empire. It expects his cupboards to be skeleton-free and his character to be impeccable and beyond reproach. It wants a Bill Struth image. It wants dignity and class and a bottomless pit of cash.

It is living a dream - or should that be fantasy?

If the requisitioners fail, I will fear for the club. If they win, I will fear for the club a little bit less. Either way, there is no dream ticket. The foreseeable future is monochrome - from light grey to dark grey to black.

A revolution is required at Ibrox, but I'm not sure that we have the stomach for it.

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A fairly new word in the English language could have been creating specifically for Rangers - omnishambles.

Nothing at the club is right: from over-generous pay scales and obscene bonuses to boardroom shenanigans and football drudgery. With every day that passes the club seems to die a little, and those in charge of it appear from nowhere to lecture and scold.

Stand back a little from this debace and understand why we are a laughing stock in Scottish football. From the fanbase to the requistioners to the faceless appointees who come and go - no-one is earning or deserving of any credit. A massive Scottish institution is lost at sea and there's a heated debate about who should chuck it a lifebelt.

Rangers has become a soap opera to be mocked and abused by all and sundry. This is where we are at. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. This whole episode has been a shameful humiliation for every Rangers fan - and it's far from over.

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I don't like the idea.

When a team is winning 4-0 with fifteen minutes to go, it's an opportunity to have a kick at an opponent and be sinbinned for it - which is effectively no penalty at all.

Do we really want to see two or three binnings a game, because that's what could happen?

I want to see eleven v eleven unless an illegal action merits a proper dismissal.

There really isn't a problem here. Platini is trying to make the sport better, but this idea could actually make it worse.

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A good idea or a poorly thought-out and needless innovation?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/25235277

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Let's be clear - we are same club we always were - but just because forty, fifty or a hundred thousand people believe it doesn't make it so.

Our membership was transferred from a company in liquidation to a newly-formed company, and the SFA recognised this fact. This means that our history continues - officially - and that's what counts.

Forget the soul of the club and other romantic notions. They don't count for anything. We go on as we did before because all the right boxes have been ticked. If they hadn't, our next Scottish championship would have been our first instead of our 55th - despite what tens of thousands of fans say or think.

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The Rangers Supporters Trust is delighted to announce that a direct debit option for BuyRangers is now available.

Last year RST members raised £250,000 in the Club’s IPO, now the direct debit option enables all fans to participate via affordable payments each month.

By signing up to our direct debit scheme a fan automatically becomes a member and enjoys the benefits of a community shareholder within the Trust.

At present the Trust owns 357,142 shares in the club.

Signup details are available online at http://www.therst.co.uk/buyrangers/

Please read the terms and conditions before signing up.

RST Chairman Gordon Dinnie said -

‘As Chair of the Rangers Supporters’ Trust I am incredibly proud of the hard work undertaken by the RST board to make the direct debit scheme for ‘Buy Rangers’ available. This is a significant step for the Trust and the wider Rangers Family in facilitating the collective purchase of a major shareholding in our club.

We believe that greater fan involvement will help secure the future of our club and ensure recent dark times never descend on us again.

Year on year, the Rangers support invests more than anyone else and during our recent trials and tribulations, the loyalty of the wider Rangers Family shown to the club has been nothing short of remarkable. It is time for that loyalty to be recognised and the voice of the support heard in the boardroom.

By saving monthly towards purchasing shares in Rangers, you can help achieve this aim.

It’s your club; it’s time to make that a reality.”

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It is unwise to state that Ibrox should be our home permanently. The locale could become undesirable, the structure could become too expensive to maintain, a better venue may become available elsewhere or we could grow out of it.

It might seem unthinkable at the moment, but the time could come when it will make sense to move away from Ibrox.

The future is hard to predict. A few years ago, who foresaw us playing anywhere other than in the top division? The option to move should always exist, even if it isn't something that would be widely supported right now.

Do you also have to join the RST to take part?

I think so.

Membership is about £10 a year I believe.

Finally, after lurking in the shadows for far too long, the requisitioners emerged from the shadows to hold a public meeting - and have it televised live.

Well done to those who made this happen. Gradually, we're joining the 21st century. This was real progress and should be repeated as and when circumstances allow.

The meeting itself went reasonably well, and most of the questions were pertinent and to the point, but while the personnel at the top table earned some much-needed credibiliy, I'm not sure that they have a blueprint other than to bring integrity and honesty to the club - which of course is hugely important.

While Rangers would be a better club with the requisitioners at the helm, I doubt that it will be a more imaginative and innovative club. I worry that it could slip back into tolerating incompetence, having limited ambition, accepting appalling football and being overly diplomatic.

I would like the requisitioners to break a new dawn and revolutionise the club, but I suspect than an outbreak of blazered Rangersitis is likely if they come to dominate the boardroom.

Paul Murray needed a Hibs fan to tell him that the club should have some kind of constitution. It needs more than a constitution - it needs a rebirth as a fully fan-owned entity that has finally given up on luck to deliver trusted ownership to it.

In the meantime, the quiet revolution that is the RST's BuyRangers initiative is surely the path to follow for concerned Rangers fans.

Like the live broadcast the other night, BuyRangers is a constructive move in the right direction. Amidst the bluster and the shenanigans, we're at least getting some things right.

Those Celtic fans who have taken to flying banners with political messages on them - they are not doing anything that a mature society should object to. They hold a particular point of view and want to flaunt it, as they have done for decades.

Driving them underground is an exercise in madness. Keep them in the light. Let everyone see what they stand for. Let them be judged for their views.

Oppressing and criminalising them is an extraordinary foolish tactic because it will fuel their anger and aid the growth of their more extremist wing.

Yes, they would stand back and see Rangers fans targeted, and applaud authority for doing it, but that's because there is a lopsided moral standard in their midst which should hardly come as a surprise to us.

Alex Salmond's shallow administration is needlessly provoking a deeply sinister element here, and it was bounced into it by people who basically wanted a law to single out and arrest Rangers fans.

If the Scottish government has any sense at all, it will walk away from criminalising football fans and abandon its bad law.

If the law interferes with a heavy hand, it will create the circumstances for a poisonous weed to take root and grow.

This is one of the few things going for Rangers these days - a genuinely constructive way forward.

I congratulate those who are making it happen.